Yoshi Konno, the visionary founder of 3Rensho, designed several bicycle lug sets over the twenty-year history of his company. His magnum opus was the Modeulo series, which incorporated traditional flourishes with a distinctly modern “aero” design sensibility to create a shape that still turns heads over thirty years after their introduction. Click “Continue Reading” below to learn more about the history and development of the Modeulo lug!
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I restored this little blue Bianchi last year, starting with just a beat-up old frame and fork. It was a Bianchi Backstreet from 1990, an early “hybrid” that combined the frame of a hard-tail mountain bike with 700c wheels. It was constructed from good quality Tange tubing and was fully lugged.
After sandblasting the frame, I re-painted it a deep blue and gave it matching fenders. Then I added a brand new 26-inch wheelset with a Sturmey-Archer S-RC3 three-speed internally geared rear hub. I also added a brand new crankset with a single chainring. The handlebars were NITTO brand, and I added cork grips wrapped in deep red cloth bar tape to enhance the grip.
The result was a classy townie bike / commuter designed for cruising around the city in style. Mechanically, it was extremely simple: no brake levers, just a coaster (“kick-back”) brake and the gear shift lever up front. It sold to a petite girl at the beginning of the spring season this year, and I hope she’s still riding and enjoying it.
Click “Read more” to see a gallery of hi-res photos of this bike.
So it’s been literally a year, to the day, since I’ve updated this blog. But I haven’t been idle on the bike front! In fact, 2015 was quite a year for me and bicycles, one where I finally achieved a long-held dream of mine: to build my own frames. Thanks to the help and mentoring of Lance Mercado at Squarebuilt Cycles here in Brooklyn, I built my first frame this past March.
Read on for all of the details! Continue reading
It’s been several months since I’ve done a write up on one of my restoration projects, but now I’m back and I have a whole stable full to show off. First in line is this 1980 Mercier Salève “velo de course”. A mid-range road racer as seen in this catalog from the early 1980’s, it features Vitus tubing and drop-outs. I like the paint and logo schemes of the early 80’s Mercier bikes more than any of the other eras. It’s restrained but the blue paint glows with a subtle sparkle. Read on for more…